The present invention relates to a content delivery system and a content delivery apparatus for use therewith, the content delivery system providing streaming delivery of contents such as moving picture files via a network such as the Internet.
In recent years, the services of offering, selling and delivering various contents such as still pictures, moving pictures and music to users over a computer network have been getting attention. This type of content delivery service typically involves users each operating a terminal apparatus (called the user terminal hereunder) such as a personal computer to gain access to a server having contents offered for delivery. The server allows a desired content file such as a moving picture ordered for purchase by the user to be downloaded to a hard disc drive or the like in the user terminal. Once downloaded and stored into the user terminal, the purchased file is reproduced by the user for enjoyment. One disadvantage of this conventional content delivery service is that because the content file is copied to the user terminal, illegal copies can be made of this copied file and such unlawful copies can be released to the public domain including the Internet.
Meanwhile, a so-called streaming delivery service has been proposed whereby content files such as moving pictures and music are not copied but streamed to the user terminal for reproduction. This type of service is supposed to be effective for preventing illegal copies or their illicit release to the public domain because content files are not left in the user terminal.
However, there exists today software that captures screens in streaming reproduction. This software allows streaming delivery of moving pictures or the like to be easily captured into the user terminal. Once taken into the user terminal, the contents can be illegally copied and their unlawful copies distributed as in the case of the conventional content delivery by download. Because the streaming delivery service is designed to distribute the same data concurrently to a large number of users, the destination users cannot all be confirmed or identified. Hence the difficulty in determining which users have made illegal copies of their contents or illicitly distributed such copies.
There is another disadvantage to the proposed service. Because the streaming delivery service delivers the same data to a large number of people at the same time, it is difficult to charge each user for the service rendered, especially for each file delivered to the user in question.